7 Bloggers Walk Into a Bar...

I'm heading out tonight to meet up with some friends. Some I've known for quite some time, while others I feel like I already know even though we've never technically met.

That's because we're all bloggers. Oh, and we're all twin moms. How do you like that?

So, you what happens when you get seven bloggers together. In a bar. Blog fodder. That's the danger of friends who blog: you never know when you'll end up the topic of a post!

I'm looking forward to it. I could use a relaxing night out. Appetizers, desserts, and some sitting in the general vicinity of alcohol. Sounds perfect to me!

So a big shout-out to my fellow twin-mom bloggers, Nancy, Goddess in Progress, Mommy, Esq, Rhonda, Sotorriffic Twins, and Snickollet. Check them out if you get a chance, maybe egg them on to do something crazy for me to report back about. Though knowing myself, if someone is going to do something embarrassing, it'll probably be me.

Looking forward to seeing you all! Maybe by tomorrow I'll have the second part of the joke from the title...

Tattooed Grandma, Porcupine Skin, and Unsold Houses

Hold on to your hats, this post is going to be all over the place!

My mom got a new tattoo. It's very pretty...she sent us a picture. It's on her shoulder, so the picture just shows a bit of her back and arm and the back of her head. I showed it to the boys with no description, just said, "Hey guys, come look at this picture." B-man's immediate comment: "Is that Grandma?" I love that when they see a tattoo, they immediately know it's got to be Grandma! Then N-man followed it up with "Why is Grandma naked?" Hey, bud, that's just the kind of Grandma you have! Scantily clad and tattooed. (I should have asked her if I could post the picture...it really is quite a nice one!)

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N-man came into our bedroom this morning just as we were starting to wake up. He happily announced, "Bones are hard. Skin is soft. But not a porcupine's." Um, okay? Thanks for the early morning bit of randomness.

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We've made an offer on a house. I'm starting to get a little nervous and have second thoughts. I know, kind of late for that, and I'm hoping my second thoughts are just the nerves I'd be having no matter what. Our offer is contingent upon our house selling by the end of April, and if anyone else makes an offer before then, we'd have to match their closing date (which we wouldn't be able to do, so we'd just have to pass on the house at that point). So this offer is far from a sure thing. We'll see what happens.

We dropped the price of our house, but we're still not getting much interest. Our house is definitely much nicer than the other two houses in our town that are priced the same as ours is now. So if someone is looking in our town in our price range, I feel confident they'd pick our house now that we dropped the price. I guess it's just a waiting game for that person looking in our town, in our price range. Where are you, home shopper?

A budding Picasso

B-man completely freaked me out yesterday by suddenly drawing something that was recognizably human. Wild, huh?



I was cracking up at the gigantic body that completely swallowed the head...

N-man is my budding Pollock, which is a-okay with me. He used to love coloring, but at school most days they do coloring where they are supposed to color inside the lines (a fine motor skill), and N-man hates to be confined so now he's not a huge fan of coloring time. So at home I just let him do whatever he wants crayon-wise, which is still normally a huge fixation on "whirlpools" and "mazes" and "lots of circles". All those pictures look alike...I need to take a photo of those as they are so neat and spin-y!

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I did remember to go to the dentist this morning, you'll all be happy to know (in case you haven't memorized my past blog entries, I had mentioned a few days ago I was worried I'd forget my appointment. I won't even bother linking it in as it's not exactly the most interesting reading ever. But I figured you'd appreciate a follow-up. Or not. At least I'm keeping it short!)

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I almost bought Talk Talk by T. C. Boyle the other day. It's my book group book this month, but I've been hearing it's not that good, and while I love Boyle, this book just doesn't sound appealing to me so when faced with the $14 price tag, I decided just to get it at the library.

Okay, fine. Of course I haven't checked to see if it's at the library or if I need to reserve it, but whatever!

So this morning, I was looking for something new to read. I used to have a "to read" area on my bookshelves. It was a couple of piles that sat in front of the books on one of the shelves. It looked kind of messy, but I knew right where my books to read were.

When we cleaned up the house to get it ready to list, we had to address our bookshelves. We donated a ton of books, moved a zillion boxes of books to storage, and now have very neat, kind of empty bookshelves. They sure look nice, though I worry to have only about 200 or so books in the house! I know, it's a strange thing to have anxiety about, but I'm always worried I'm not going to have something to read.

And even worse, we shelved all our "to read" books in among the other books we'd left on the shelves. It looks so much better to shelve the books by size than by "have I read it" status. But it's not exactly convenient when I need a new book.

This morning, when I was perusing the shelves for something to read, imagine my surprise when I discovered I have a copy of Talk Talk that I just haven't read yet. I remember now! It had been in my to-read pile! I picked it up at a used book sale a few months ago for a couple bucks.

Pleasant surprise. Now I just hope I'm pleasantly surprised by the book itself...

The learning experiences provided by hide and seek

Something neat about having kids is that you discover that EVERY experience is a learning experience. We've been playing ENDLESS games of hide and seek. Something I've learned: there aren't a lot of places to hide in our house. Something else I've learned: that doesn't do a lick to discourage B-man and N-man from wanting to play constantly.

Another interesting fact I've discovered: while I feel like my pregnant belly is still little, it's now officially too big to fit under the bed.

Perhaps playing hide and seek is mostly a learning experience for me.

For the boys, they both are in a "love to count" stage. We were driving in the car last night, and they starting counting together. They got up to 29, then they both paused, as if they were waiting for the other one to say what number came next. So I prompted them: "What comes after 29?" The pause drags out for a minute, then N-man pipes up excitedly, "Ready or not, here I come!"

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Random related post: This isn't the first time we've had hilarity in the car around what number comes after 29. See this post for B-man's take on alternatives to thirty!

Where's my brain?

It's in my head!

But it's not always working. I'm beginning to get pregnancy brain.

When I was pregnant with the boys, my most awesome experience was when I went to the grocery store with a short list of about 10 items. When I got home, I realized I had forgotten to get two of the items on the list, which I needed to make dinner. How do you look at a list of only ten things, and somehow not see two of them?

But it turned out it didn't matter. Because after I bought and paid for the groceries, I left the bags sitting at the end of the register. Yep, I'd bought groceries, but managed to go home with nothing. And I didn't notice right away.

Luckily, things haven't gotten that bad yet. Though I was convinced we had a Mother of Twins meeting tonight, and it's actually next week. I'm glad I thought to check before I just went tonight.

But I am getting worried about what I will forget. It's kind of funny, but also kind of scary. I hope I don't forget anything important. I have a dentist appointment Friday morning. They called me today to remind me. I felt like telling them if they really wanted to make sure I didn't miss the appointment, they should probably call 20 minutes before I'm supposed to be there...

Want to take bets on if I'll remember my dentist appointment come Friday??

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N-man is finally doing okay with going pee on the potty. If we're at home. If not, it's still pee-in-the-pants time. But I'm finally seeing the light at the end of the potty training tunnel. Hopefully it's not just the headlight of an oncoming train, about to shatter my hopefulness about eventually having two potty trained boys.

Want to take bets on if it's the end of the tunnel or an oncoming train?

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It was my turn this month to provide choices for the book group I'm part of. I put Talk Talk by T. C. Boyle on the list, though I was worried about the choice. Of course, that was what the group selected (instead of The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon, which has been on my list of choices the past three times I provided picks and I've been desperate to read but keep putting it off in the hopes we'll pick it for book group). Our book group only reads books out in paperback (easier to get at the library, or less expensive to buy), and Talk Talk is the only one of Boyle's books out in paperback that I haven't read yet. But it's a thriller. I'm not too keen on thrillers, and anyway, I'm not sure how great it'll be for a book group to discuss, especially if some members haven't finished. On the other hand, I've loved a number of his books, and found all of them interesting or enjoyable, even if I didn't LOVE them. So I picked this solely based on the author even though the book itself doesn't appeal to me.

Oh well, the choice has been made, and I guess this is what I get for putting a selection I wasn't sure about on my list! Anyone (Laura?? I probably should have just addressed this section directly to you!) know if Talk Talk is any good?

Want to take bets on if my book group will love or hate this book?

Two is the EVIL-est number

And no, I'm not talking about twins! I love twins!

The boys and I, for some reason, got on the topic of odd and even numbers. We talked about how every other number starting with 1 is odd, and every other number starting with 2 is even. For about thirty minutes yesterday, they asked me about nearly every number in existence (well, at least in their knowledge :) if it was odd or even, and they got pretty good about telling me if I started at one that 1 is odd, 2 is even, 3 is odd, 4 is even, etc.

Then we dropped the conversation. It's not really something that is an important part of their daily life at 3 years (oh, how odd!)

Today, out of the blue, N-man asked, "Mommy, is two EVIL?"

"No, honey," I replied confusedly. "Two isn't evil."

"Mommy, is two EVIL?" he asked again, really stressing that EVIL.

"No," I answered, still wondering why he's developed a sudden distrust of the number two.

"Mommy, is two ODD?" he asked.

Ah, it finally clicked. "No, you were right the first time. Two is EVEN."

Leaky cups

What's on my mind today? Leaky cups. Ah, the trials and tribulations of a mom.

Here's the deal: I'm a big fan of the zero-waste snack/lunch for school. I think it's really important to get in the habit of giving the kids as little disposable packaging as possible. It's been easy with snacks. The pre-packaged, individual serving size snacks of things like goldfish are ridiculously expensive anyway. I much prefer buying the big box of goldfish and doling it out into reusable little tupperware containers. Plus, then I have the option of preparing healthy snacks like cut up fruit in those same little tupperwares. You know, when I'm actually up early enough to cut up fruit, and actually have fruit in the house. Okay, fine, mostly it's goldfish.

But drinks: those are difficult. I'm firmly against the idea of juice boxes in theory, but I just can't find a reusable drink container than doesn't leak. The boys don't finish all their drinks, and then it leaks all over their backpacks, making a disgusting wet mess that ruins all their papers in their backpack.

I've tried giving them less in their cups, but it seems like no matter how much is in their cups, they'll always drink 3/4's of it, leaving plenty left to leak all over.

So does anyone have a great solution to the leaky drink problem? Some wonder product appropriate for 3 or 4 year olds that won't leak all over? Maybe they're ready for a thermos-type open cup...what do you think? Give me brand names, people! I'm at wit's end.

Of course, it wasn't a long trip to the end of my wit, but that's besides the point...